Mushrooms, mold found growing in Ohio State University dormitory
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Students living in Lawrence Tower at Ohio State University have concerns about mold and mushrooms growing in their dorm rooms. Meantime, the university said a water leak is to blame and dozens of students are now being relocated.
A statement from the university said 40 students will be temporarily relocated from 19 affected rooms.
Paige Scheidemantel has until Friday to pack up and move out of Lawrence Tower. The freshman was told her room was one of the rooms impacted by the water leak. She said her main concern is the mold she found in her room.
"Me and my roommates have been literally sick since the first day we got in here," Scheidemantel said. "We've all had coughs."
Scheidemantel said a mold test she recently conducted revealed there was black mold in her room.
"We found like a fuzzy chunk of mold in our AC," she said. "There was mold on our bathroom ceiling."
Scheidemantel's friend Lauren Lerch lives in the dorm room next door. The two said they're nervous about the health impacts.
"We've all been sick," Lerch said. "My roommate has gone to the doctor two or three times, has been on antibiotics the whole time, she can't sleep. She's been coughing up mucus, blood, throwing up. It's been bad."
This doesn't appear to be an isolated incident. Sam Ash, who also lives in Lawrence Tower, said he didn't realize the problem until the towel holder next to his shower fell off the wall.
"So then we looked behind the wallpaper because there was a little crease right there and the more it peeled back, the closer it got to the shower, instead of being white like the rest of the drywall, it was a little black," Ash said.
Meantime, Kyra Avarello has already moved into a new residence hall after a shocking discovery a couple weeks ago.
“I came back from a party and my roommate told me that there was something growing out of the wall," Avarello said.
She said that the next morning when she woke up, it had sprouted into a mushroom.
"We were pretty freaked out," Avarello said. "We didn't know what kind of stuff we were breathing in and if these mushrooms were harmful."
Students are now scrambling in between class and work to pack up all their belongings.
“We have midterms on Thursday," Lerch said. "It's impacting everything. We have to find a way to pack, go to classes, while also dealing with everything going on."
Drew Lutz, a freshman in Lawrence Tower, said he received an email around 5 p.m. Tuesday from OSU Housing. The email notified him he has been assigned to move to Morrill Tower by 1 p.m. Friday.
"I wish that they would be a little more flexible and open with the students, because the email we got was pretty vague just saying you have to move all of your stuff out," Lutz said.
Mykenna Roy, an undergraduate student government university senator, said a resolution was brought to the student government criticizing the use of Lawrence Tower as a dorm because of the current health risks associated with it. In a unanimous vote, the resolution was passed through the committee. The final vote will take place Wednesday night.
According to the university, if any student notices water-related or other issues within their specific room, the university said they should submit a facilities service request by clicking here. The university said students should not remove wall coverings, pull up caulk or take other actions that would impact the structure of their living space.
The school’s full statement is below:
A water leak occurred in a utility chase, the vertical space that allows pipes and wires to run from one floor to another, on the 11th floor of Lawrence Tower. This leak caused water damage to the drywall and is limited to the rooms that are adjacent to that utility chase.
The leak was reported via Service2Facilities on October 28, and the same morning Facilities team members were on site assessing the damage. They moved quickly to repair the leak and work to identify the extent of the water damage and begin making repairs to those spaces.
We have been working with an external consultant to develop and implement a remediation plan to repair the damage caused by the leak and replace the saturated drywall. While no immediate health or safety concerns to residents have been identified as a result of the water damage, the best option for the most rapid fix will require us to temporarily move all residents in the rooms adjacent to the utility chase to another location within the university housing system. This will allow crews to do the work more quickly and efficiently and is the sole reason for the temporary relocation.
Only students living in rooms impacted by the leak will be moved. Approximately 40 students will be temporarily moved from 19 impacted rooms. We are working with those students to facilitate and assist them with the relocation. While it is too early to have a timetable for repairs, we anticipate that these will be temporary moves and that students will be able to return to their rooms after the work is completed.